Mold in school scatters its pupils

[Guest guest]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/feb02/23051.asp

Mold in school scatters its pupils

Opened in September, closed in November

By JESSICA HANSEN of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: Feb. 24, 2002

Every morning, students at Chavez Elementary School in Madison line up for

the " Chavez shuffle. "

Mold

Photo/Joe Koshollek

Custodian Rhonda Rickey packs up papers and books from the desks of

fourth-graders at Chavez Elementary School in Madison. The new school, which

opened in September, was closed for the school year after mold was found

growing inside.

It's a term students, teachers and staff - some of whom have fallen ill

because of poor air quality at the school - have adopted to describe the

chaotic shifting of classrooms and lives that has resulted since mold was

found there in late November.

The school has since been closed and will remain so until next school year.

But at about 8:15 a.m. each day, students line up in the gym - they used to

line up under outdoor tents - with each child under one of six signs with

the name of his or her host school. Shifting in their shoes and trying not

to pester their neighbors, they wait for the buses to arrive.

When the buses pull up, the more than 400 students climb aboard.

For Padley, a kindergarten teacher at the school, that's when the race

begins.

After hustling six groups of usually rambunctious kindergartners onto buses,

including the 15 children in her own class, Padley sprints to her car.

It's then a mad dash through rush-hour traffic to Glen Elementary

School, about five miles away. When it doesn't snow, Padley can usually make

it to the school and find a place to park before her students arrive.

But it's usually close.

Padley is among dozens of teachers and hundreds of students whose lives for

the last 117 days have been upheaved because mold was found at the new

school.

Chavez Elementary opened in September in the southwestern part of Madison.

The $11 million public school is a wonderland where kids punch ID numbers

into key pads to pick up their lunches, each classroom is equipped with an

average of five computers and air conditioning eases the pain of hot school

days.

But the building, Madison's first new elementary school in more than 30

years, was closed in late November after school officials found mold growing

there.

Since then, mold continues to be found, the latest growths popping up just

last week in cafeteria skylights, teachers and staff members said.

Chavez is not alone in dealing with mold. Other Wisconsin schools facing

similar situations include:

Sections of Summit School in Oconomowoc were closed in December after tests

showed high levels of mold in the air. The oldest part of the school, built

in 1911, was closed permanently. Other areas were cleaned and reopened. The

school is to be demolished after a new school is built.

The Sheboygan Area School District's Early Learning Center was closed for

nearly a month after mold was found growing after a water leak on the

building's lower level. The center, which serves about 650 children,

reopened in early January.

More than 80 students at East Side Elementary School in Sun Prairie,

northeast of Madison, changed classrooms in January after mold was found

between the walls of two bathrooms and two janitorial closets during

scheduled air-quality tests in December.

About 65 students at Sunset Elementary School in Oshkosh were bused to

another school earlier this month while workers cleaned three rooms where

mold was detected.

At Chavez, problems with mold have complicated the school year.

" It certainly has not been an ideal educational situation for the kids. It's

just something that had to be dealt with, " said Doug s, 42, who has two

children enrolled at Chavez.

The ses live less than a mile from Chavez. Their children, a daughter

in fourth grade and a son in first grade, never took a bus to school.

Now, s said, they spend 10 to 15 minutes each way on a bus getting to

and from school.

And they no longer attend the same school. s' daughter goes to Thoreau

Elementary School. His son now attends Falk Elementary School.

s said his kids are adjusting fine, but it has been a challenge.

" I think the important thing is so many people are focusing on the mold as

opposed to: How have the kids settled into their routines? How hard is it

for the teachers to teach when almost every grade level is at a different

school? "

For Padley, whose daughter now travels nearly four miles to third grade at

Orchard Ridge Elementary School, each day is a struggle.

Most mornings when Padley arrives at her host school, she said, " I would set

my bags down in the hallway, and often that's where they would stay until

the end of the day. "

That's assuming she has any bags to carry.

Until two weeks ago, Padley had to teach her class with few, if any,

supplies, including lesson plans, books, testing materials and art project

designs.

They were all locked up at Chavez while crews worked to remove mold. Her

classroom, next to the laundry room where the mold was first discovered, was

among the first to be affected.

" We had nothing. Curriculum, books, language arts testing materials.

Everything. Everything in a classroom. All my files on everything that I've

ever taught, " said Padley, a teacher since 1979. " We were pretty much

creating everything and borrowing from other teachers. "

To make do until supplies could be ordered or retrieved, Padley, like so

many other teachers from Chavez, spent her own money to buy materials.

The Parent Teacher Organization took donations to reimburse most of the

costs. Local merchants donated supplies, including crayons, markers and

notebooks.

Stressful for children

Behavioral problems are on the rise.

" I feel like we're doing the best we can to maintain as much of their

routine as we possibly can. But we can't do it all. The stress is causing

some children to have more behavior issues at school and at home, " Padley

said.

Padley said the entire experience has been made worse for her students

because she was absent during the first 10 days of the transition.

" I was off on medical leave for two weeks because of the mold, " said Padley,

who since September had complained of respiratory problems, watery and itchy

eyes, headaches and a raspy voice. She was the first of 41 teachers and

staff to sign a petition saying they suffered similar symptoms while at

school.

" It was a really horrible situation because they were going to a new school,

but they didn't have their teacher, " she said.

Although Padley has returned to work, her health problems reappear when she

attends staff or PTO meetings at Chavez.

Since Chavez was closed, Padley said, she has attended at least four

meetings at school, usually in the gym or cafeteria, two rooms teachers and

staff say air-quality testers have deemed safe.

" I continue to get ill if I go into the building for meetings, " Padley said.

" My chest begins to tighten up. I lose my voice. My eyes were getting red. "

Staff members said school officials are thinking about holding meetings

elsewhere, but the next staff meeting, planned for today, is scheduled to be

at Chavez.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 25, 2002.